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I’m taking my boy to his first Latics match today and I’ve been thinking (or trying to as it was quite some years ago) about my first match at home to Cardiff in August 1981. 

 

That feeling walking into the Chaddy with my dad, then up at the back on the wooden steps at my dads favourite spot behind that wall above the old tunnel. Seeing the pitch, hearing all the shouts etc. Magical. I hope he remembers it in a way I do, although I know the experience is very different now. 

 

What are other people’s memories of their first visit to BP? 

 

 

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Those boards at the back of the Chaddy were great,then being swept off your feet and carried off in a surge of bodies.

That was fun albeit rather dangerous,then what seemed like 2/3 of the stand full of City fans was an experience.

I have no wish to revisit the age old Chaddy/ RRE debate but the Chaddy was an awesome place to grow up.

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Yes THAT City match, I just remember my dad chinning any City fan who came near us as me and my mate (think we’d be about 7 or 8 at the time) hid behind him against the back wall as it kicked off. I was probably really frightened at the time, but I remember it vividly. Was it 2-2? 

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1 hour ago, Dick_Valentine said:

I’m taking my boy to his first Latics match today and I’ve been thinking (or trying to as it was quite some years ago) about my first match at home to Cardiff in August 1981. 

 

That feeling walking into the Chaddy with my dad, then up at the back on the wooden steps at my dads favourite spot behind that wall above the old tunnel. Seeing the pitch, hearing all the shouts etc. Magical. I hope he remembers it in a way I do, although I know the experience is very different now. 

 

What are other people’s memories of their first visit to BP? 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy today its a special moment for anyone taking their son or daughter to their first football match.

 

My first game was against Brighton FA cup 4th round 1990 I was 7. I was with my Dad and my Grandad. We went 1-0 down into the second half before goals from crosses from the left to Scott McGarvey then Andy Ritchie sealed the win. I was at the back row of the old lookers. I think at that age its often the crowd you take in the singing and the noise. From that moment I was hooked for better or worse. Exactly 23 years after that game we beat Liverpool, 26 years exactly after that game I carried my Grandads coffin into his funeral. Its passed down the generations this for my family, my great grandparents supported Latics too. Im not an Oldhamer but this is my club for better or worse.

 

Not only thst but today is dreamers day its the start of a new season we still have a chance in 4 competitions and if we cant have hope and optimism today whats the point. Hope everyone enjoys the game today and we get a result.

 

I'll get of my soapbox now.

Edited by GlossopLatic
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3 minutes ago, Dick_Valentine said:

Did City have the Lookers in that match? Or was it just full of them in there too? Seem to remember seeing the seats being ripped out and thrown on the pitch from up there? 

They made it pay on the day  city was all over the ground  in every stand   

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August 27th 1988 v Barnsley.  Drew 1-1. Didn’t attend but that’s officially my first game ‘supporting’ Oldham.  A number of us had to choose a team who would finish the highest in League 2 that season - I lost - but it led me to follow the games that season.

 

I loosely followed Derby County before that but I was hooked on Oldham Athletic after that 1988 season.  30 years on and a lad with no affiliation with Oldham has spent tens of thousands following us home and away plus added 3 to our fan base through my wife and daughters.

 

Today I’ll shortly be driving the 260 round journey up to BP.  It’s my daughter’s fifth season supporting us and she’s as exciting as I am.

Edited by Midsblue
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9 minutes ago, Midsblue said:

August 27th 1988 v Barnsley.  Drew 1-1. Didn’t attend but that’s officially my first game ‘supporting’ Oldham.  A number of us had to choose a team who would finish the highest in League 2 that season - I lost - but it led me to follow the games that season.

 

I loosely followed Derby County before that but I was hooked on Oldham Athletic after that 1988 season.  30 years on and a lad with no affiliation with Oldham has spent tens of thousands following us home and away plus added 3 to our fan base through my wife and daughters.

 

Today I’ll shortly be driving the 260 round journey up to BP.  It’s my daughter’s fifth season supporting us and she’s as exciting as I am.

Have a safe journey mids  

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My first game was against Ipswich Town in 1990. We won 4-1 Palmer scored and Irwin too. I kept thinking the pitch didn't look very plastic. Taking my nephew to his first game today, hoping he enjoys it as much as I did back then.

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November 22nd 1986 v Crystal Palace (H) W1-0 

 

I’d gradually been getting into football bit by bit throughout 1986, my attention first gripped by the magnificent football ‘86 collection by Panini, so obsessed were we in Junior 2 at limehurst our evil teacher Mrs Talentire would not only confiscate our stashes she would rip them up and even had a special pair of scissors to cut up the shinies! (Bitch, glad she got sacked for locking a kid outside!) 

 

Then it was the ‘86 cup final Liverpool and Everton. They had dominated the mid 80s and dad whilst exasperated at Latics during the mid 80s always had a soft spot for the blue half of Merseyside. I watched the whole day enthralled at the build up. Gary Lineker playing snooker with Willie Thorne the celebrity kickabout, Jimmy Tarbuck et al, then the main event a cracking game littered with players who would become many of my boyhood heroes. As a nine year old though by the end of a pulsating contest I had been seduced by the reds of  Liverpool. From that moment I was a football fan.

 

During that summer I was mesmerised by the skills of Maradona, Platini, Elkaejar, Laudrup et al and I had two new heroes Gary Lineker and the Soviet Union’s giant goalkeeper Rinat Daseyev, after the tournament my dad started to tell me about his team,(he’d gone Week in week out from ‘62-83 before an enforced sabbatical through apathy and unemployment - cheers Maggie) the same team I remember that when I was smaller he would regularly leave the saturday tea time washing up half done to stand leaning on the back of the settee pot towel over his shoulder waiting for their vidi printer result on grandstand. His reaction to a defeat or draw mainly was ‘shite!’ Before trudging back to finish said washing up! If we’d win he’d react with his usual ‘get in!’ Before finishing his pots!

 

Whether it was the World Cup or the fact we started the season well or probably because he found work again, dad began going again early 86/87. When he told me, I mithered like hell, he eventually relented with Latics top of the league a week after winning 2-0 at Leeds. I’d be become increasingly football daft watching whatever highlights or the occasional live game. I had moved schools and began playing for the school team in junior 3 at St Pats. I decided I wanted to be a goalkeeper my heroes were the afore mentioned Dasayev, Neville Southall and Bruce Grobbelaar. 

 

So dad decided to take me on 22/11/86 to Boundary Park I was 9, my 6 year old brother came too. From entering the turnstiles on the crisp, freezing November day I was hit by a wall of senses! The cigarette and cigar smoke, the oxo - (far superior to Bovril) meat and potato pie (only one choice in those days). The roar of the crowd 6,000 sounded like 100,000 the funny quips, the seeing hardly anything so then clinging to the fence. The teams running out seperately , the  magnificent Spall kit our best ever  Mouldy old dough, the bog rolls thrown to greet the team, you’re shit aaaahhh that was aimed at the veteran George Wood in the palace goal. 

 

An early Latics goal and bedlam ensued. Tommy Wright scores it and a lifelong Latics hero for me was borne. I was awestruck by the brilliance of our own goalkeeper - Andy Goram. My other enduring memory of that day was how cold my feet were by the second half. I was cold but enjoying the game whereas our kid was moaning from about 20 minutes in! I think dad gave in after about 70 minutes, I was gutted, we Started the long trek back to Sholver on the 404 which stopped on Chaddy Way in those days. On arriving back to my grandad’s he had made homemade meat and potato pie waiting for us.

 

I was hooked, on the whole matchday now and when it was time to see my dad again a fortnight later, Dad took me again v Shrewsbury but our kid didn’t come! Just like the previous game dad left with 10 minutes to go as he was worried I was getting hypothermia! I cared not a jot! I was already obsessed and wanted to stay. Dad’s premature departure saw us miss two late goals one as we were going down the chaddy end steps and a third which we only found out about when dad went for a Pink Final later that evening.

 

Last season’s opening day - my first without dad was tough, I was on holiday in Greece and today I’m away in Turkey. It doesn’t make it any easier going into a second season without my dad. Without him none of the above would have happened. Fantastic memories and I was so privileged to start following Latics at the start of those glory days and sharing all those wonderful days and nights with dad. 

 

It'd be great to to create more memories this year..

 

 

Edited by oafcprozac
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2 hours ago, Dick_Valentine said:

I’m taking my boy to his first Latics match today and I’ve been thinking (or trying to as it was quite some years ago) about my first match at home to Cardiff in August 1981. 

 

That feeling walking into the Chaddy with my dad, then up at the back on the wooden steps at my dads favourite spot behind that wall above the old tunnel. Seeing the pitch, hearing all the shouts etc. Magical. I hope he remembers it in a way I do, although I know the experience is very different now. 

 

What are other people’s memories of their first visit to BP? 

 

 

 

1991 against Sheff Utd at home. So I missed the promotion and the cup final and started just before our plunge through the leagues. Always thought we drew the game 1-1 but according to Wiki we won        2-1.  My memory being a woman in front of me getting really annoyed at 7 year old me who’d realised shouting as loudly as you can was allowed at football matches ?

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2 minutes ago, Buckshawlatic said:

 

1991 against Sheff Utd at home. So I missed the promotion and the cup final and started just before our plunge through the leagues. Always thought we drew the game 1-1 but according to Wiki we won        2-1.  My memory being a woman in front of me getting really annoyed at 7 year old me who’d realised shouting as loudly as you can was allowed at football matches ?

 

Remember that one Sheffield United had a team of right dirty bastards in those days and had 2 sent off before half time in the days when Ref let almost anything go. Glynn Snowdin and Marshall scored from memory.

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16 April 1965, Oldham 5 QPR 3, attendance 7,951. 2 each for Bowie and Frizzell, and a Quixall penalty. We finished 20th that season so just stayed in Division 3.

 

I was 7 years old and that morning my dad, from St Helens and a lifelong RL fan, gave me the choice between Latics and St Helens. I said United were at home, so why couldn't we go there? He hated United with a passion, had a trial with them when he was demobbed at the end of the war and was turned down as being too old at 25! So I said Oldham. At the end of the match, he turned to me and said, don't expect this every time - how right he was!

 

As a footnote, my daughter's first match was v Bristol Rovers, 27 September 1997, she was 6 years old. We were 3-0 up after 15 minutes and I told her she was going to every match from then on! She then fell asleep and we drew 4-4!

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Being from Cumbria when I first moved down to Manchester I went to see Carlisle at Oldham. My abiding memory was waiting on Weneth station waiting for the train back to Manchester and being stoned by Oldham fans. For the last 30 odd years have ended up supporting the Latics.

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2 hours ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

Remember that one Sheffield United had a team of right dirty bastards in those days and had 2 sent off before half time in the days when Ref let almost anything go. Glynn Snowdin and Marshall scored from memory.

Yeah, bunch of Dave Basset thugs. They always gave us problems unfortunately....

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